
Confederates in the Attic
Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Addison
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By:
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Tony Horwitz
About this listen
When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.
Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through ritual and remembrance.
In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' reenactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.'
Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and new ones 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways. Poignant and picaresque, haunting and hilarious, it speaks to anyone who has ever felt drawn to the mythic South and to the dark romance of the Civil War.
©1998 Tony Horowitz (P)2013 Random House AudioCritic reviews
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Good book
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Great listen
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Even though it’s written by a Yankee…
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Even if you're not a History buff, this book is fascinating. It's not just about facts - it's about encounters , emotions, and the legacy
of the American Civil War in people's everyday lives.
In "Confederates In The Attic", Horwitz meets an incredible range of people, hard-core reenactors who welcome him generously, nostalgic dreamers clinging to a South that seems lifted straight from Gone With The Wind (including , memorably , Japanese tourists paying to dine with "Scarlett O' Hara") and some whose views are genuinely unsettling and openly racist. The book moves seamlessly from the very funny to the deeply worrisome, often in the same chapter.
Personally , it was so fascinating that I found myself pausing to look up some of the history which deepened the experience.
I already knew Tony Horwitz 's writing through his book on James Cook , and I was glad to find the same sharp eye and dry humor here too. The journey he takes is not just geographical , it's chronological too , moving from past to present in a way that feels organic and revealing.
A fascinating journey through past and present
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Insightful read
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Interesting Story
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It's depressing, but also important to know how many people in our country think. And this book does a great job of showing that.
Well-written, illuminating, depressing
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Great story that’s just a tad too long
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Poignant read illuminating today's fractured US.
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